Apply before your leave expires — this is the whole game
If there is one thing to take from this page, it is this.
Applying before your current leave expires means your existing conditions — your right to work, to rent, to access healthcare — continue automatically while the application is decided, under section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971. That protection is what lets normal life carry on through a decision that may take months.
Apply after it expires and you are an overstayer. Section 3C leave does not apply, the right to work ends, and the overstaying has to be declared on every future application. There is a narrow provision for applications made within 14 days of expiry where there is a good reason beyond your control, but relying on it is a poor plan.
The practical advice is simple: diarise the expiry date the day you receive the grant, and start gathering evidence three months before it. An application made in time with evidence supplied afterwards is in a far better position than a perfect application made a week late.
What changes at the extension
The extension is not the first application again. Three things are different and each catches people out.
English rises to A2. The first grant needed A1. The extension needs A2 CEFR in speaking and listening, from a Home Office approved provider. People who scraped A1 two and a half years earlier and have not tested since are the ones who find this out late — book the test early, because slots and results both take time.
The financial requirement is proved again, from current evidence. It is not enough that you met it before. It must be met now, with payslips and bank statements covering the current qualifying period. A job change, a period of maternity or sick leave, or a move into self-employment since the last application all change which documents are needed and which qualifying period applies.
The relationship must still be genuine and subsisting, and you must still intend to live together permanently. That means another evidence bundle — and the good news is that the last two and a half years should have generated it naturally, if you kept it.
FLR(M) or FLR(FP) — which applies
FLR(M) is the extension for partners and children on the five-year route who meet the requirements of Appendix FM in full. Leave is granted for 30 months, and after five years of continuous leave you can apply for indefinite leave to remain.
FLR(FP) is for those on the ten-year family and private life route — granted where the full requirements are not met but refusing would breach Article 8. Leave is granted for 30 months at a time and settlement comes after ten years rather than five.
Which you are on is determined by what you were granted, not by what you would prefer. But it is not always fixed for ever: someone on the ten-year route whose circumstances have improved — most often where the financial requirement can now be met — may be able to move onto the five-year route and cut years off the wait. That is a question worth asking at every extension rather than only at the end, and it is one of the more valuable things a solicitor can spot.
Common reasons extensions are refused
The pattern is consistent, and every item on this list is avoidable.
- Applying late Even by days. It ends section 3C protection and puts overstaying on your record permanently.
- No A2 English test Assuming the A1 test still counts. It does not, and booking late is the usual cause.
- Financial evidence that does not match Payslips that do not reconcile with bank statements, or a document a few days outside the required window.
- A change of circumstances not addressed New job, self-employment, maternity or sick leave — each changes the category and the evidence required.
- Thin relationship evidence Assuming the first application settled the question. It has to be evidenced again.
- Wrong form or wrong fee An application on the wrong form can be treated as invalid, and invalidity does not preserve your leave.